A survey of German banks that focused on the time from 2008 to today showed that the majority of banks generate most income from interest. Many banks would like to increase the income contribution from commission deals, however, this is rather difficult in volatile markets. Plans to increase business volume were often not fully implemented.

Due to new players, the lending market had become highly competitive. Since the market has been stagnating since 2008, there is a need for optimisation in order to achieve target margins. There are only two options:

either to reduce costs by streamlining processes and/or

increasing sales with diversification

Currently, everyone is talking about “omni-channel sales“. This means sales via various channels, e.g. branches, the internet, mobile devices, etc. that access the same data basis. For example, customers are given access to a self-service portal where they can configure their own loans – including all approval workflows and legal requirements. This reduces the workload in the branches regarding standard business and, at the same time, fulfils customers’ wishes for a relationship on equal terms with a bank.

In recent years, comprehensive software projects were executed, particularly for the introduction of state-of-the-art core banking systems, e.g. SAP solutions. These are useful and laid the foundation for modern process management. However, despite their volume, these projects did not result in a direct optimisation of sales processes

FERNBACH applies a different approach to optimise sales processes. We offer a cutting-edge front office system with omni-channel sales functions that can be used either in a branch, online, via self service or mobile devices. Lending products can be configured in the system and process models can be presented. The FERNBACH Lending solution provides a modular view of data that enables bidirectional inclusion into SAP CML as well as the creation of interfaces to many core banking systems.

Thus a bank can quickly increase its income from lending operations without having to adapt its back end system landscape. Our customers saved about 50% of process costs after the implementation of FERNBACH Lending and, at the same time, were able to improve quality and comply with legal requirements. A return on investment within 24 months is realistic.

FERNBACH will be organising a number of webinars in the months to come in order to present the different aspects of lending systems and their consequences.